Re: Aircraft Crash Axe

Re: Aircraft Crash Axe

Through the course of my work I come into contact with many elderly people, some of them veterans. I will always ask them about their experiences and one such patient of mine was a Horsa glider pilot. He told me he landed at Pegasus Bridge (not in the first wave but later on within the first 24 hour period) and was then quickly removed to Blighty because it was thought that the transport of troops and equipment would have to coninue by glider despite the terrible losses incurred.

This was not the case however and his next and last mission was to be 'Operation Market Garden'. He told me he had a hell of a job landing the glider because he realised that he would have to land it with the wind behind him rather than 'against the wind' which of course would act as a natural brake.

He managed to put the glider down but found that he was racing at breakneck speed towards another Horsa surrounded by troops. There was nothing else he could do but put the stick forward and bury the nose. It came to a halt in an almost vertical position and thankfully without casualties. They then had to pull it back down and chop it in half with the hatchets fixed inside to free a Jeep they had been carrying.

He went on to be captured during Market Garden and spent the rest of the war as a POW. I always feel incredibly privileged to have met these men and women and always make a point of jotting down their tales in my little black book!